


Pieces

by spacetrashdelux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bloodplay, Cannibalism, M/M, Multi, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:44:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6652882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetrashdelux/pseuds/spacetrashdelux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux works as an Enforcer for the Council that regulates the worldwide vampire population alongside Lycan and long-time companion, Poe Dameron.</p>
<p>Their objective to stop a vampire who's changing for the worse leads them to what might be the start of something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_crow/gifts).



> I was pretty tired of the idea of New Orleans vampire stories, so I took some liberties and set it in rural North Carolina, since I'm pretty familiar with it. I wanted to ground the story in a real location. I used to drive highway 64 from Raleigh to western NC a lot and there's this strange, long building off the side of the road along one stretch that always catches my attention (and is chilling to drive past at night) and I thought it would make a good opening setting! After I spent an hour looking around for any clue regarding the building's usage, I had nothing to show for it, so that was a bit disappointing, but you can see this creepy little place [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7653012,-80.076706,3a,75y,177.96h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2vtzVojGFq8wJPMNC1e3ZA!2e0!7i3328!8i1664). 
> 
> Also, I was so excited to get to write Poe & Hux together! I thought I'd have trouble with it, but I fell in love with them together immediately, and then with the idea of all 3 of them together and I hope you're alright with how I balanced their dynamic.
> 
> I honestly could probably write an entire novel about these three...there's so much to explore!
> 
> I hope you like it! I had a lot of fun writing it.
> 
> Edit: June 11th, 2016 - Gave it a shiny tune-up. The tense should be constant now and there shouldn't be any typos. Added a few lines to flesh things out in parts, too. No further edits needed.

Hux, who had never deigned to take another name as the centuries marched on and on before him, let out a sort of huff as Poe pulled the old Ford pickup truck to a stop just off of Highway 64. It really wasn’t his first choice of transportation, but like any of Poe’s vehicles, it ran perfectly despite it’s weathered appearance. This one in particular helped them keep a low profile- a relatively low profile anyway- when they were dispatched to rural areas like this. They were somewhere in the muddy divide between Lexington and Davidson counties and there was nothing but darkness and the rustle of the wild summer growth to either edge of the two lane highway.

They’d stopped the truck on the shoulder, but here the shoulder served as more of a lip, dropping off abruptly a stone’s throw from them to the right where a series of low white buildings pushed up from the ground beyond the lip like molars. None of the buildings really seemed to fit together, yet they were connected fully in a way that made Hux wonder if there wasn’t a singular hallway stretching the length of them. There was no telling what the building was used for if it was still used for anything. In a way, it reminded Hux of the long, lean buildings used for pig farming. It hugged the ground, sprawled belly-down, proud of the filth it had been planted in. A couple of industrial blending silos sat on the leftmost portion’s roof, but that merely narrowed down the building’s use to anything from livestock rearing to industrial production.

All he could be sure of was that their man was inside. He could feel it, his unnatural life signature. Poe could smell him, hear him. The vampire had been on a killing spree across three different states, making victims of mortals and vampires alike. It was natural, of course, to kill a mortal every so often. They were the bottom of the food chain, so-to-speak, but their man had killed three in one day, five the next, two vampires… He was wild, losing himself to a change which should have been a second skin to him after the couple of decades living as an immortal. It was rare, and troubling, when the change turned a vampire down the line. It meant vampires like Hux were sent to put them down.

Poe had lit a cigarette. He was interested in the little motor shop across the street, glowing in the lonely light of the mercury-vapor streetlamp illuminating the lonely stretch of 64. The darkness at the edge of its ghostly light crept close like unconsciousness at the edge of a dimming vision.

“Hungry?” Hux asked, popping open the glove compartment and pulling out a bag of chips, sunflower seeds, beef jerky. They kept them on hand partially because of the wolf’s appetite and partially because Poe had a weakness for gas station fare. Hux found it both frustratingly disgusting and endearing.

“No; want to see what old McDonald’s Motors has sitting around needing fixing. Wanna see what he’s working on in the daylight hours.”

Hux snorted and Poe turned his head, keeping the cigarette out the window so the smoke wouldn’t drift inside the cab and cling to Hux’s jacket.

“I won’t; I just want to.” Poe grinned. “You know me.”

That pulled a soft light out of Hux’s eyes and he shook his head, grin small and sharp in the dark. “Stay.”

“Unless you call me. I promise.” He leaned his seat back, holding up a hand and crossing his middle and index finger so Hux could see. Scout’s honor. “Right here.”

Satisfied, Hux got out and shut the door, looking at Poe through the open window, the two of them sharing something unspoken. The silence of the night broke around them as a sharp cry rose in the dark like a knife grinding cruelly over bone or a tractor trailer sliding across asphalt on its side. Though too muffled for mortal hearing, it was pregnant with enough agony and fear to make Hux’s stomach quiver with hunger. Poe shifted in the driver’s seat, swallowing, turning his head out the window away from low building where the sound had come from. He flicked ash from his cigarette onto the gravel. It was in their nature to feel that way: Hux for blood, Poe for flesh, both for the raw sensual frenzy of the hunt and kill. Were it not for a deference to the rules set by the Council and a deeply ingrained respect for the sanctity of mortal lives, it could have easily been one of them in that building, ripping the raw screams right out of the mortal’s throat. They’d been sent to punish that very part of both of their natures. It was a sobering thought.

When Poe spoke again, there was a growl in his voice. “You’d better go; give him hell.”

Hux nodded, turning away and walking down the gravel slope to where the building crouched. His feet didn’t make a sound as he followed along the building’s side to the back where it backed up against a line of trees. There was a creek just beyond and he could hear the wary croaking of frogs who sensed him but didn’t know what he was. There was little chance of saving the mortal but that hardly mattered. So long as he could subdue and execute the rabid vampire before he moved onto another target, that would suffice. Even if he managed to save the mortal he’d have little choice but to kill it himself. Mortals weren’t fantastic confidants and were even worse with coping with the fact that vampires walked among them.

Eyes narrowing, Hux stopped short and gazed at the long silent body of the eighteen-wheeler parked in the blackness behind the building. It smelled like the vampire they’d tracked here. He’d made a bigger scene by lifting vehicles as he ran from state to state and this was the latest in a trail of bodies- both dead and inanimate. It was with distaste and a little concern that Hux saw it was a reefer; could smell the carbon dioxide in it. There was something vague and unsettling about the vampire hijacking a refrigerated truck.

From their own truck, Hux could feel Poe catching his unease, probing gently at his conscious. What’s wrong?

The truck he brought the mortal in- it’s refrigerated.

Christ. Do you think he’s…?

I don’t even know if it was a conscious decision. His body might just be guiding him.

Hux felt a shiver go through Poe’s thoughts. Well, is there anything in it?

A beat. Nothing alive; nothing dead.

That’s good.

We’ll see. Hux didn’t want to bank on that. There was nothing in the truck yet. For all they knew, this mortal could be the first real turning kill. And after that? It wouldn’t matter if his prey was alive or dead, he could pack the truck full of torsos and limbs and hide out for a while, feeding.

Stomach tight, Hux turned back towards the building, digging his black leather gloves out of his pocket and putting them on before he took the blessed silver garrote from the lined pocket on the inside of his jacket. It almost glowed with its own sharp coolness in the dark and Hux’s back prickled with the anticipation of the fight. At the edge of his conscious, Poe gently pawed for his attention. What?

Call me before you need me if things look bad.

Yes.

Hux?

I promise.

There was a sudden flatness around them in the night. The flickering life signature of the vampire could still be sensed but the actual heat map of the mortal was gone, extinguished. Hux found himself frozen, blinking. Shit.

I feel it, too. Poe was ready, eyes already sweeping the front of the building for movement. With the mortal dead, the vampire might flee at any time. If anything, Hux wanted to catch him before dawn. No more chasing him across state lines.

This ends tonight, Hux told himself, winding the thin wire around his gloved fingers, grinding his back teeth together. He took a step towards the silent building but there was Poe again, hesitant, anxious.

Poe; what? Hux asked, exasperated.

He listened as if he could see through the painted cinderblock sides of the building into the shadowy heart of it.

Something’s wrong; he’s weaker.

Poe wasn’t wrong. There was a shiver in the life signature and, beyond that, a physical whimpering, a soft sobbing. Even if the vampire had turned to a different sort of physical sustenance, flesh and blood were both life, and even a fight with a mortal that had resulted in his victory shouldn’t have weakened him.

What the hell?

Hux didn’t much care, and he walked through the back door into a shadowy room stuffed full of metal sided desks and boxy old computers grimy with dust and chemicals.

Remorseful and weak or not, the Council has called for his death. Let’s just get this over with.

Poe still seemed uneasy but he respected Hux’s determination and the Council’s order. Hux could feel him relaxing back in his seat. Poe only jolted out of that state when the end of his cigarette met his fingers and he dropped it to the gravel below, so focused on Hux and the building that he’d forgotten it. Poe bit back a curse and Hux had to keep himself from cooing mentally at him, though Poe seemed to sense that, too. Swallowing a laugh, Hux refocused on the building around him.

As he’d suspected, there was a singular hallway that stretched through the whole building. The office space he was in seemed to be nestled between an area for machinery to be maintained and repaired and a large factory floor on the other side. Since the manufacturing floor was in one of the two larger parts of the building that seemed identical, Hux suspected there was another sort of factory space beyond that one, but exploring that wouldn’t be necessary as the life signature was coming from the one directly ahead of him. The whimpering continued and it was such a lonely, sorrowful sound that he shivered. There was minimal emergency lighting on over the manufacturing floor, and even if the moist, warm wall of the smell of mingled blood hadn’t completely flooded Hux’s senses, the lights showed him the slick of blood on the floor.

It wasn’t there to follow so much as there to look at. It was a period at the end of a sentence and above it, wrists bound cruelly tight with chains high above his head to a structural beam, the vampire’s victim seemed to gaze down at the mess at his feet, head hanging down. The vampire who’d brought him there lay at his feet in a bloody heap, motionless, all animation gone from its body. Yet the low, pitiful moaning continued and Poe felt the shiver go through Hux, searched the reason behind his silence.

Christ. It was the mortal- Is the mortal- Was. He re-corrected himself. He could almost feel Poe cock his head at the feedback.

What?

The mortal, the victim…isn’t… That’s not the vampire’s life force we’re feeling.

Poe’s incredulity echoed his own, spinning, bewildered.

Across from him, half a room away, the newborn creature raised his head, trembling. Clothes torn- shirt pulled halfway up his belly and off one shoulder, pants half open- and hair disheveled from his struggle, he looked utterly defenseless. He’d sensed Hux and his voice stretched out towards him, rough from sobbing and screaming. “Help me, please.”

Hux froze, indecisive. There were bites on the man- out of the tender parts of his body- his right thigh and above his hip in the soft part of his side, his neck. He was a well-built man, Hux couldn’t help but notice, his muscle well-toned. He would have been a delightful morsel just for blood alone. None of the bites were bleeding actively. He wasn’t dying, not anymore.

He didn’t seem to realize that yet, though. His thoughts were scattered and unguarded and Hux read them easily, saw flashes of memory skitter across the surface of his mind and realized with a sinking feeling that the man’s last memory of the sun was tainted with fear and the memory of his captor in that truck. He’d been hitchhiking. He’d done it for a little while, going state-to-state, just running, escaping himself and a family that didn’t love him. He’d traded various things for rides sometimes: cash, drugs, sex- Hux realized, feeling like he was prying- and then he’d gotten into the wrong truck with the wrong man. And now he was going to die.

“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, and Hux saw that the skin under his eyes, along his waterline, was pink- would always be pink- from weeping. There was a reason taking someone over to the other side was supposed to be consensual; a huge part of it was that any damage sustained prior to being turned wouldn’t heal. This man, beautiful though he was, would always look like he’d been mourning, always sound tired. While the bites out of him would heal over, the teethmarks and missing chunks would remain the same. A reminder of a trauma he’d sustained.

“You’re not going to die,” Hux said, stepping out of the darkened offices out onto the concrete floor of the factory, walking towards him slowly. There was a lot to take in and he stopped just short of the blood, gazing down at it, barely nudging it with the toe of his boot. With the lights shining on his red hair and pale skin, he knew the man had fallen silent out of recognition. He felt the man searching his face.

“You’re one of them… Like him.”

“No. A vampire, yes, but not like him.”

“Liar! You’re going to kill me!” He was crying again but it was dark, rotten blood rolling down his cheeks and not tears.

Hux tilted his head, feeling impatient with this creature that didn’t even know how strong he was; certainly he was stronger than his mortal self had been. “That remains to be seen. I was sent here to kill him, not you. However, we don’t know exactly what you are yet. After all, you killed him, and he was something worse than a vampire. He was turning into something else. He was eating you, literally, not just taking blood.”

The man acted like he wanted to lunge at Hux, baring teeth that were razor sharp, all of them. “I’m mortal! I’m human!”

The weight of Hux’s gaze silenced him. Some realization was starting to settle onto him gradually and when Hux looked down at the dead vampire’s body, the man looked with him, somberly. “Tell me how you managed to kill him.”

“He bit me- but not out of me this time. Into me. And he was drinking my life- my blood. Instead of getting scared so much, I got mad. It was my life and he was just slurping it up. It was horrible, about the most miserable way imaginable to die, you know?” He looked up, searching Hux’s face, like maybe Hux didn’t know, but Hux nodded impatiently and the man continued in a soft voice that held just a breath of a southern accent, something as natural as red Carolinian clay. “My hands are- were- bound but he was pressed up against me and I just… I bit him.”

There must have been a shadow of incredulity on Hux’s face, because the man snarled at him again, eyes flashing like the wire still wrapped around Hux’s gloves.

“I did! Gave him a taste of his own medicine. It was horrible, but as soon as I swallowed some, I…”

Hux tried not to imagine how the man’s blood tasted. He was almost envious of the dead vampire at their feet but that was only because the man’s freshly-lost mortality still clung to him, sweet and strong. Somehow he thought the smell would always cling to him. There was something so human about the man even now that he was anything but mortal. Hux smiled, “You couldn’t stop drinking. It tasted like the sweetest nectar and you felt if you stopped drinking, you’d die.”

Stooping down, Hux severed the dead vampire’s head from his shoulders with a single cut of the wire in his hands, then slid the body away from them with his foot. Flicking the blood off of the wire with a practiced motion, he slipped it back inside his jacket, but he kept his gloves on and closed the distance between him and the man so that there was a breath separating their lips. With a smile at the man’s dazzled expression, Hux pressed himself against the man, wrapping a strong hand over his bound wrists. His eyes were bright and eager. “What’s your name? I work for the Council; I can convince them to let you live.”

The man shivered and it was such a mortal reaction that an animal urge rose in Hux’s belly. The light in his eyes flared and his already-sharp eyeteeth elongated.

“Ren,” the man managed, voice softer than the dust on the factory floor, “Just Ren.”

Hux held back a groan, suddenly seized by the desire to fuck the creature right into the floor. It had been a long time since he’d been happy to see another vampire, which might have been a part of the reason he was such an effective Enforcer for the Council. Too many of his kind were pretentious, self-important, and selfish. But Ren… Ren was freshly-minted and somehow oh-so-human. The only reason he didn’t seek out mortals was because they were fragile and easily frightened. Poe was as close to a mortal companion as he came and Poe wasn’t even mortal anymore.

There was a sudden shuffling behind him and he and Ren jolted apart, but it was only Poe with an armful of tarp and he laughed when they turned to look at him. “Like a couple of cats! So…two vampires?” He flashed two fingers at Hux as he passed, crouching down next to the headless body and spreading the tarp out on the floor. “Is that what happened?”

Hux shrugged, breaking the chains around Ren’s wrists with one hand, “More or less a vampire; only time will tell. His name is Ren.”

Poe didn’t look up from wrapping the body in the tarp carefully, almost lovingly. It always chilled Hux a little to watch how he cared for the bodies they disposed of. Sometimes they returned them to the Council, but usually fallen vampires were so far below the Council’s respect that they allowed Poe to eat them, gnawing on the bones to the marrow. Their guard dogs, after all, ate well if they served well.

“Ren,” Poe repeated, and Hux caught an image of a cute plump bird in Poe’s mind. A question mark. Wren?

I don’t think so, Hux answered him, I think he spells it different somehow.

“Like the bird?” Poe blurted out. Ren looked confused for a moment, in the middle of pulling his shirt back where it needed to be and buckling his belt.

“What? Oh, no.”

“No,” Hux assured Poe with the look of someone who’s always been right and always will be.

Poe shrugged. Can’t hate me for trying. “So what are we going to do with him? I’m sure the Council will want to know if he’s a threat, since his own sire committed Deicide and yet he managed to overpower him.”

A loud squawk tore out of Ren and it sounded positively horrible with his tattered voice. His fish teeth caught the wan lighting. “Deicide? Vampires think they’re gods?”

He laughed some more and Poe and Hux silently chalked it up to shock.

“Congratulations,” Poe said dryly, “You’re a god.”

There were tears coursing down Ren’s cheeks. “Oh, what a fucking shitty nightmare!”

“Good news. The Council can shut this nightmare down permanently, pal. Or…” A smile curled Poe’s lips and he shot Hux a bright-eyed look. Hux wasn’t sure he liked where he was going. “My partner, Hux, here, has quite a silver tongue. He got their permission to take me under his wing. He’s already kept me in line without a leash; taking a more-or-less vampiric fledgling would take less effort to convince them of, I’m sure. What’dya think? Whoops-”

Poe had just spotted the disembodied head that he’d neglected to roll up in the tarp and unrolled the body halfway to wrap the head up with it, then tucked the edges in so he could carry it back to the truck, ignoring the stern look Hux was giving him. You should really hang out with more vampires; this one’s just a baby. Look at him! Without you, he’s going to go hissing through traffic. Besides, he’s kinda…

“I need a night to sleep on it…a day, whatever,” Ren added. He was leaning back against the pole he’d been bound to, rubbing his wrists, looking down with muddy confusion at his glassy nails and smoother, perfected skin. He took a deep breath, and it seemed like his eyes were heavy with the effort it took to raise them to met Hux’s and Poe’s gaze in turn. “I’ve…never been good with family stuff. With belonging. Now I’m…some sort of monster even to you. Seems better if I lived in the woods and ate millipedes.”

“But you can’t.” Hux blinked, “Eat millipedes. Blood is your sustenance now. And there’s no living off the grid even now, I’m afraid. There’s a system in place for us, protected even by the governments of the world. Poe’s right, you’re going to need at least someone to show you the ropes. Even if you don’t want my protection as a companion.”

Hux swore he saw a rosy color rise in Ren’s cheeks. He looked like a child trying to make a decision: the corners of his plump lips quirking into a gentle frown as he thought, his brow furrowed delicately. “Let me…think about it.”

“Until then, you stick with us,” Poe said. “Going to the other side of life is a little like getting new anti-depressants- it’s a little rough the first few weeks and then things start to settle.”

Ren searched Poe’s eyes and then took a deep breath- something completely useless to him- and nodded.

* * *

 

Poe pulled the truck around the back of the weird old building and Hux and Ren loaded the body into the bed of the truck, snapping the bed cover back in place over it. It was about three hours before sunrise- enough time to hunt and hunker down for the night, but not enough to drive all the way back to their home. It was a cozy ride to the nearest Motel 6 with all three of them on the bench seat. Poe and Hux kept conversation gentle and lively on the ride over, careful not to pry or push any answers out of Ren, though they communicated silently between one another the entire time, mostly Hux berating Poe for wanting him to keep Ren around. Poe seemed determined, though, and Hux contented himself with the idea that Poe might wear himself out trying. By the time they’d gotten to the hotel, though, Ren was a lot more relaxed, his hand brushing Hux’s on the seat next to him.

Taking a packet of beef jerky from the glove compartment, Poe ripped the package open with his teeth and winked at Hux as they all got out of the truck. “I’ll get the room; just knock when you’re ready to turn in. I’ll eat our friend in the tarp tomorrow.”

Jovial, whistling, he strode into the motel. Ren shot Hux a worried look, drawing closer to him. “What is he that he eats vampires?”

“Werewolf.” Hux turned from the truck and started walking across the dark parking lot. Ren scurried after him.

“And you’re not scared of him? Where are we going?”

He didn’t want to be left alone with Poe or the dead body of his sire. All of this amused Hux, and Poe who was still casually listening in to Hux’s emotional feedback. It was comforting having Poe there like that. He tried to imagine being like that with both Ren and Poe and the thought felt very cluttered and full, too bright and colorful. He frowned. “There’s a balance to everything, Ren. Poe wouldn’t eat me without good reason. We’ve been together for almost a century and he hasn’t found a good reason yet, even when he was starving. I know you’ve got few reasons to trust anyone right now… And we’re going hunting. You need to feed and so do I.”

Hux could almost hear Ren processing all of this information, sense him frowning, the corners of his lips cutely dimpling his cheeks again. Hux wondered if those dimples presented themselves alongside smiles, too, if Ren ever smiled. Stopping, Hux held out an arm to stop Ren. His voice was softer than mortal hearing could easily pick up. “I’m not going to try to convince you that vampires don’t kill; we do, but only when nothing else has worked. We try to take discreetly- in the club scene it’s a piece of cake. Out here you’re better picking off anyone who strays from the well-lit paths. If it makes you feel better, find someone with wicked intentions. There are plenty, unfortunately for this world and fortunately for us. You’ll be able to sense it. Despite what yarns media has spun for you about vampires- the heightened senses and overwhelming richness of color in everything after turning…it doesn’t feel like that. It’s cloudy at first. There’s so much it feels like there’s less of it, right?”

He didn’t have to turn his head to know that Ren was nodding, blinking.

“I suppose it’s evolutionary. The hunting instincts are there first… You only see what you need to, sense what you need to. You’re faster, you just haven’t tried that out yet. There’s no flying, no turning into mist, but you’re an effective hunter right now. You could keep up with Poe if you were to hunt together. Over time, the depth of colors and sounds and sensations will heighten. It makes art orgasmic and sex it’s own universe. I promise.”

He turned his head to smile at Ren and was surprised to see something almost hopeful in his eyes.

All at once, though, Ren turned his head sharply to the left, pupils dilating wildly. He dashed away in the dark and Hux went after him, dazed by the speed with which his potential new protege took off. He could feel Poe monitoring everything, feel the alarm rising in Poe’s mind and Hux shook him off. It’s fine; it’s fine. He’s probably startled, himself.

There was a man stepping into the woods at the edge of the parking lot. With a wretched snarl, Ren slammed into him bodily and tackled him into the underbrush.

Shit.

Hux dove after him and dragged the two of them, writhing, struggling, deeper into the woods, gazing into the man’s eyes until he relaxed beneath them and stopped trying to escape.

“What? Can I do that?” Ren looked horrific in his hungry state: his lips pulled back from long, needlelike teeth, eyes large and dark. Despite appearances, his voice was still softly rough.

“Probably, if you hadn’t just rushed him… I was going to show you how to make it intimate for him. There was no reason to drag him like a feral dog.”

Hey. Poe was pouting back in the hotel bed.

Sorry.

“Rule number one, even if we’re protected by the government as a species, enough behavior like that will get the Council’s attention in a bad way. Usually they’ll have a talk with you first, then they send someone like me. So, please, please listen to me.”

Ren frowned down at the man he’d tackled. “So… He’ll be okay?”

Hux nodded, turning the man’s head to the side. “He won’t remember a thing, so we’ll put an empty bottle or something in his hand. It’ll feel like a hangover. A blackout. But…no more of that. Next time I’ll show you how to seduce someone.”

“Like I need help with that.” Ren looked so insulted it made Hux laugh.

“Just with your tact; you’re quite beautiful.”

That shut the both of them up and then Hux gently cleared his throat when he felt Poe giggling at something other than the television. “So, when you drink from someone, you need to listen to their heartbeat. You’re going to want a lot of blood right now because you’re a fledgling, but you need to pull back when their heart beat starts to slow- immediately- no matter how painful it is to pull away. If you’re still hungry after, you can feed from me. Okay?”

Ren was worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, leaving little pinpricks of blood that looked like black jewels in the dark. Hux leaned close and swept them away with the tip of his tongue, eyes locked hard on Ren’s.

“You can do this…”

Eyes darting down to Hux’s mouth, Ren looked dazed, but he lowered his head and slid his tongue along the man’s jugular, tasting his pulse before he sank his teeth down into the man’s throat, letting the blood come to him at first. Hux watched, aroused and impressed with Ren’s control. It had been a long time since he’d gone hunting with another vampire, much less watched one feed.

With being newly born and hungry Ren’s self control only lasted for so long, and Hux winced as Ren smashed his face against the man’s neck, carving his teeth through the flesh, nearly chewing. The man’s pulse had started to slow.

“Ren!” Hux whispered, nervous. “Ren!” Ren growled low, shoulders hunched, tongue lapping noisily somewhere in the darkness between them.

Reaching out, Hux laid a hand on top of Ren’s head, and Ren stopped drinking abruptly. He lifted his blood-smeared face to look at Hux, eyes round. Looking lost and horrified, he looked down at the man between him, not thinking as he blurted out, “Is he-?”

“No, he’s fine,” Hux assured him. “Lick his throat- just lick.”

Ren looked crestfallen, peeking up at Hux as if he didn’t trust himself as he leaned down again, but he gasped softly in the dark and there was a radiant happiness on his face when he lifted his face again. “It healed!”

“Yes,” Hux said, relieved, lifting a hand to Ren’s dark hair again, stroking it, “We are capable of good things… You didn’t kill your first mortal. That’s good, considering. Very good…”

Ren blinked and then all at once, he leaned towards him in the dark, hair tickling Hux’s cheeks as Ren pressed his bloody lips over his own, kissing him. He was warm and for a second, Hux’s mind felt aflame, frightened he’d hurt Ren- before he remembered that Ren was merely warm from feeding, not because he was a delicate mortal. And yet, beyond that illusion, he truly was soft and pliable, strong and real. Hux’s hands fisted in Ren’s hair and he moaned, crawling over the unconscious mortal and pushing Ren down against the ground. Without needing to breathe, neither of them broke the kiss. Hux deepened it, slipping his tongue into Ren’s mouth, sweeping it across his teeth and the insides of his cheeks, tasting the man’s blood in Ren’s mouth.

The way Ren pushed his tongue into Hux’s mouth was almost clumsy but eager and Hux could feel what he meant suddenly, almost as clearly as Poe speaking to him. Bite me; drink. Share this with me.

“Oh, Ren!” It was almost embarrassing to have said it out loud. There was a deeper knowledge that it had also been mutually pleasant for the both of them to hear it. Hux had no idea what had gotten into him. It had to be that it was just that Ren was a vampire. This was novel; a rare treat. He thought he felt Poe biting his own tongue, trying not to say something at the edge of his mind, but then the only sensation was the taste of Ren’s borrowed blood that had somehow become his own in his veins flooding his mouth and Hux moaned aloud again. He tasted like drinking wine in the dark, like the faintest wisp of leftover smoke from an extinguished candle, a laugh in the night. Hux shivered, one hand moving to rub and squeeze Ren’s hip. He could feel Ren’s length straining up against him as his own stirred to life.

Let me have you, he thought, please. His hands were already unbuckling Ren’s belt, undoing the button and fly of his pants, peeling the fabric back. Between them, Ren’s hands were doing the same with Hux’s pants. Hux wanted to laugh at the knowledge of it, at their mutual want. With little need for lubrication or condoms, he reached between them and lined Ren’s thick length up underneath himself and eased himself down on it.

Hissing in tandem like snakes curling together, he bore down on Ren’s length, feeling his own lips parting, cupping Ren’s jaw. Ren gazed up at him, the whites of his eyes lost in lust, glittering in the dark. He threw his head back, sensitive, gasping and Hux laughed, pushing Ren’s shirt up, sliding his carefully trimmed fingernails up his chest roughly, leaving scratches in his wake.

He began to move his hips, holding onto Ren’s sides, leaning down to lap at Ren’s throat as he adjusted to Ren’s size. Ren’s large hands wrapped around his own hips and he had to bite back a delighted gasp as Ren aided his thrusts by lifting and lowering him, picking up the pace a little bit.

Tightening around Ren in a way that pulled a surprised little sound from the fledgling, Hux bit his throat almost tenderly, tonguing at the drops that trickled out.

“Fuck!” Ren whispered, thrusting up into Hux. Hux smiled.

I wish I had been the one to turn you. I would have been so gentle, you know. Possessive, but gentle.  Lowering himself, planting his hands to either side of Ren’s head, Hux, rocked back along Ren’s length, glad to have Ren’s large hands still lifting him, still holding him. He stroked Ren’s hair, kissing him fiercely.

It was the adoration rising in Ren that made Hux slam back harder on Ren’s length, that made him grip Ren’s hair so hard it would have made a mortal man scream in pain. He bit at his plump bottom lip, amazed that so many things about Ren were big- his hands, his dick, the thickness of his thighs and sides and arms- but all together, he was graceful and the lines that composed him were fluid, delicate things.

Ren was had begun to pant beneath him for no reason other than that the emotions building up inside him were choking him, cutting off all reason.

Let me have you, Hux begged, Let me keep you- Think on it, but please really think on it.

Ren grunted and a strange and sudden flash of panic spiraled through him. Wait, what happens when we-?

He orgasmed, his entire body arching as if galvanized, his head falling back. His eyes lost sight of anything for a blissful, blinding moment. Hux followed, back curling, a blissful smile softening his features as he closed his eyes in the dark. Relaxing he leaned back down over Ren, stroking his cheek slowly.

There’s no seed to share. Kind of nice if you’re not a fan of messes. Beyond that, our bliss lingers longer than in mortals. It feels…

Eternal, Ren thought, wonder spilling from every part of him, eyes wide and mortal again in the dark, even though he was not and never would be again.

“Yes, eternal,” Hux said, cupping Ren’s cheek, “And wouldn’t you like to stay?” He couldn’t imagine losing Ren to the crushing night, couldn’t imagine Ren walking away from them forever, a flame snuffed out and made even more insignificant than a mortal death in doing so. Though it had been a long, long time for him, Hux could still remember facing the long darkness of eternity as an immortal those first few weeks, how alone it felt. It was cold and deep, and all he wanted to do was take Ren’s hand and squeeze it tightly and run with him back towards Poe and a future together. A long one.

In the dark, Ren found his hand.

* * *

 

By the time they slipped back into the motel room, the sky was starting to lose its depth. Ren eyed it warily and Hux felt better about their chances of keeping Ren through the night. The lobby was quiet, but it was a soft pre-dawn quiet and they slipped upstairs unnoticed.

In their room, Poe had sunproofed the room for Ren- Hux was too old and strong to be affected by the sun much, and Poe loved the sun but kept to a nocturnal schedule mostly for Hux’s sake. Locking the door, stripping, they slipped into bed next to Poe. Ren didn’t put up a fuss about being in the middle, and his vampiric instincts put him out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

It was only then that Poe smiled and let Hux know he was still awake even with his back to him. Rolling over, Poe stretched an arm across Ren’s dead-to-the-world body and rubbed Hux’s side. Hux smiled back and did the same to Poe, fingers lightly trailing over his ribs, up and down up and down. They shared the knowledge of what Ren and Hux had done together in the copse of trees and it was okay. It had always been okay.

There was something sly in Poe’s expression and he arched a eager eyebrow. So, are we gonna keep him?

That’s up to him and you know that.

Poe did know.

But when it was all said and done and the sun had risen and set again over that Motel 6 in rural North Carolina, Ren was right there between them: waking up, eyes bright, smile shy but willing, hungry and asking to hunt.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Sullivan's song "Pieces" off of the album Heavy is the Head.
> 
> Though the playlist was created explicitly for an original work of mine, this fic was written to my playlist, Heritage, which can be listened to [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1227625897/playlist/4pEFWmGx5Ei083V9Kgueud) on Spotify.


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